


A Silent Moment

by PFL (msmoat)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 01:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmoat/pseuds/PFL
Summary: In the cacophony of a gunfight, a moment of silence. And a new awareness is born.





	A Silent Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 Discovered in a LJ challenge: _Discovered Upon a Midnight Clear_.

Doyle pulled the trigger, felt the kick of the recoil, and fired again. Bodie tapped him on the shoulder as he passed; Doyle kept the gunmen pinned to the broken down lorry they’d taken refuge behind. Bodie reached the protection of a stack of rusted oil drums. He laid down a pattern of rapid fire as Doyle pushed away from the wall. He tapped Bodie as he passed him. They’d separate now and trap the gunmen at the lorry. Doyle ran towards a derelict warehouse to the left of the lorry. Bodie would go right—pain bloomed in his lower leg as a bullet clipped him. Fuck—a man under the lorry— He staggered, changed direction, and dived behind a pile of tyres. While the gunman behind the lorry fired, the one underneath rolled out and raced to the door of the warehouse. Doyle raised himself to his knees. He fired towards the gunman in the doorway, even though he had no chance of striking him. He kept him from emerging, though, while Bodie left the cover of the oil cans, ran further to the right, rolled, and came up firing at the lorry gunman. The gunman jerked, then fell. His gun slid away from him. Bodie joined Doyle behind the tyres. The doorway gunman fired at them; the other lay still on the ground.

Doyle put a new clip into his gun. One down. One for Gunderson, Bodie’s grass. Bodie signalled he’d head for the lorry while Doyle distracted the remaining gunman. Doyle nodded, took in a breath as the gunman fired at them again. He crouched, ready to jump up as soon as the gunfire stopped. He’d pepper the doorway with bullets until Bodie reached the safety of the lorry. Beside him, Bodie tensed, about to run. The doorway man paused to reload. Doyle started his move, but he caught a flash of light in the hole of a window on the the first floor of the warehouse—metal reflecting the dying rays of the sun— He lunged for Bodie, dragged him back before he broke cover. Bodie stumbled, off-balance, and Doyle flung an arm around him, bearing him to the ground behind the tyres. The gunfire came again, loud and sharp, then stopped. Doyle could hear his own breaths, feel his adrenaline-fuelled heartbeat, and the skin of Bodie’s cheek beneath his fingers. What did this pause mean? Had the gunman cut his losses and run? Or was he baiting the trap? Doyle’s gut told him there was a third gunman hidden in the warehouse, perched high in order to have a line of fire down to the lorry. They’d been drawn to the lorry’s illusion of safety by the other gunmen.

They should move—two different directions to confuse and distract. But he lay still, held on to Bodie, absorbed the quiet as the moment stretched. They were alive, and they knew it was a trap. And then he realised he was stroking Bodie’s cheek. Fuck. He closed his eyes, swallowed, then pushed away from Bodie. He gestured up towards the first floor of the warehouse. Bodie nodded, indicated he’d spring lorry trap. Of course he would.

They moved simultaneously. Bodie fired rapidly at the warehouse door as he ran for the lorry. Doyle left the shelter of the tyres. He’d have no defence against the doorway gunman, but he would have a clear line to the warehouse window. He braced, waited, eyes fixed on the hole. Anger, fear, and adrenaline flowed through him, but it wasn’t only the gunmen who fed the mixture. _Fool!_ Bodie’s gunfire stopped—must have reached the lorry—the doorway man would fire — There! Doyle fired at the movement in the window, funnelled his emotions into simple purpose and clarity, willed his bullets to find their target. A man cried out and fell from the window.

“Doyle!” He dived, rolled, heard gunfire and the ping of bullets. The sounds faded away. Doyle raised his head to see Bodie rising from a crouch near the lorry, his gun ready but not raised. “All right?”

“Yeah.” Doyle pushed himself to his feet. A man lay sprawled near the doorway to the warehouse. Doyle approached him carefully, but it was obvious he was dead. He checked the man’s pockets. Nothing. “No ID,” he called to Bodie, who was examining the body of the man who had fallen from the first floor.

“Same here.” Bodie looked around as he holstered his gun.

“Feeling exposed?”

“It was an ambush.” Bodie’s eyes met his.

“Yeah.” Doyle put his gun into his holster, then bent to look at the rent in his jeans near his ankle. 

“Crease?”

Doyle straightened. “Jeans took the brunt of it. Did Gunderson know, do you reckon?” 

Bodie sighed. “I doubt it. He was used.”

“Lure us from the meet to here—why?”

“Dunno, but they obviously wanted to kill us. Gunderson would never meet in a place like this, he believed in the safety of a public space. I should have known something was wrong when the barman said Gunderson had left word for us to meet him in that alley.”

“Where we found Gunderson dead.”

“And two gunmen who lured us here.”

Doyle nodded. “Right into a trap.” 

“Until you saved us.” Again Bodie’s eyes held his. Doyle abruptly turned away.

“I’ll check up there,” he gestured towards the first floor of the warehouse. “You call Cowley, eh?”

“Oh, thanks, mate. Yeah. Cowley is not going to be pleased they’re all dead, you know.”

“Remind him we’re very expensive to replace.” Doyle made his way into the warehouse and up a treacherous staircase. The winter night was closing in, but there was just enough light for him to navigate. He found spare ammunition near the hole in the wall where the gunman had been, but nothing else. He stood for a moment, looking down at Bodie on the r/t. Had Bodie noticed the…bloody stupid—call it what it was— _caress_? He winced. But, Bodie hadn’t said anything. Maybe, in the heat of the moment, Bodie hadn’t noticed it. After all, Bodie was always touching _him_ , maybe he just… No. Doyle knew better. Bodie would have noticed. Okay. Right. Fuck. But Bodie might well choose to ignore it. Probably would, come to that. He’d chalk it up to nerves or something. And that was fine, wasn’t it? Preferable. He definitely did not want Bodie to think his partner wanted to do more than…just…stroke his bloody cheek. Oh, Christ. Doyle breathed in deeply. It had been a momentary lapse; best for everyone if it was just forgotten. Especially if Bodie wasn’t inter— Sodding hell: _stop_. Just accept the reprieve, and hope it continued. He _was_ relieved, wasn’t he? Yeah, that was exactly what he was feeling—relief. Everything would be sodding normal just like he bloody well wanted it to be. Right. He grabbed the ammunition and stalked back down the staircase.

Bodie was putting away his r/t when Doyle returned. One glance at his face drove everything else from Doyle’s mind. “What?”

“Two other ambushes. Royce is dead. Anson and Marriott are okay. Murphy’s on his way to hospital.”

Doyle looked away, biting his lip. “Shades of Wakeman.”

“Without the bombs. Chancy way to do it, though. Less efficient.”

“Sending a message?”

“Making it a war. Anyway, we’re to report to HQ. A clean-up crew is on it way here. At least Murphy managed to capture one of them.”

“Well, that’s something. Cowley must’ve liked that. We’ve got nothing on any of the bodies or up there. All we know is that they were trained.”

“And well organised. Watch our backs while we go, eh?”

Doyle looked around the deserted area. “Take another route back to our car?”

Bodie’s smile was tight. “Good idea.”

They collected and stowed the guns from the dead men. Doyle kept a wary eye out but there was no movement near them. They weren’t far from the river and he could hear traffic nearby, but the gunmen had chosen an isolated location for their trap. CI5 under attack—again. It went with the job, was part of the risk they all signed up for, but… When would it end? When they were dead. He felt a darkness creeping closer to him that had nothing to do with the wintry night.

“Ray?”

Doyle looked round as Bodie grasped his arm, and the next thing he knew, Bodie kissed him. The shock of it held him still. Just as he would have responded, Bodie broke the kiss. “That’s all right, then,” Bodie said, turned, and continued walking towards their car.

Doyle stared after him for a moment, then hurried to catch up. “New debriefing technique?” Despite the danger they were walking towards, his heart felt light. Soaring, more like. 

“Pre-op check.” Bodie glanced at him. “Yours worked a treat to get the adrenaline flowing.”

“Ah. Deflected bullets, too, did it?”

Bodie shook his head. “Nothing will do that.” 

The seriousness in Bodie’s voice twisted Doyle’s heart. He stopped Bodie with a touch on his arm. “A reason to survive, then?” 

“A promise for the future.” Bodie smiled suddenly, reached out and ruffled Doyle’s hair. “It’s December, you know.”

Doyle tried to follow his partner’s mental path but soon gave up. He pushed him towards the car. “Is it, already? Terrific.” Crowds in the shops, bloody Wizzard and Slade alternating on the radio, his mother trying for a reunion no one else wanted, and now an attack on CI5. Royce. Murphy. It would take a bloody miracle to make it anything other than horrible— 

A miracle. He glanced at Bodie and saw the smirk on his face as they passed a street lamp. Well, and why not? That was what it bloody well was. He nudged Bodie as they walked side-by-side. “Christmas at mine, then.”

“And Boxing Day as well.”

The End  
December 2018


End file.
